Girl was among thousands held captive for months by extremist group, local government official says

Rescue workers transport a victim of a Boko Haram suicide bomb attack at a refugee camp in Nigeria earlier this week. One teenage girl sent by the extremist group to attack the camp ripped off her suicide vest and ran away. (Jossy Ola/Associated Press)

Strapped with a booby-trapped vest and sent by the extremist Boko Haram group to kill as many people as possible, a young teenage girl tore off the explosives and fled as soon as she was out of sight of her handlers.

Her two companions, however, completed their grisly mission earlier this week and walked into a crowd of hundreds at Dikwa refugee camp in northeast Nigeria and blew themselves up, killing 58 people.

Later found by local self-defence forces, the girl’s tearful account is one of the first indications that at least some of the child bombers used by Boko Haram are aware that they are about to die and kill others.

“She said she was scared because she knew she would kill people. But she was also frightened of going against the instructions of the men who brought her to the camp,” said Modu Awami, a self-defence fighter who helped question the girl.